MSI X610: Supersizing the Netbook?
by Jarred Walton on October 6, 2009 10:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
MSI X610: A Compromising Solution
MSI's X610 is a truly eclectic mix of hardware. Normally, we would expect a company to either pursue the long battery life target offered by netbooks, or provide higher performance with a balanced solution. Unfortunately, to date it doesn't seem like many companies are interested in providing MacBook levels of battery life -- and certainly there are many people that don't want to spend $1300+ on a new laptop. If you're interested in a Windows laptop that offers long battery life, netbooks still reign supreme and are very affordable. Acer also makes the Timeline and claims eight hours of battery life, although without testing the laptop we're hesitant to recommend it.
MSI's chosen hardware for the X610 is a strange combination of low-power parts with relatively high-power parts. We understand why users might want a Radeon Mobility HD 4330, especially if you're using an Intel platform where Intel's integrated graphics are the lowest common denominator among GPUs. From that standpoint, the MSI X600 made sense, though the $800 price tag was hard to swallow. The X610 should be a less expensive alternative, but considering the HD 4330 isn't substantially faster than the HD 3200, at least when handicapped by a single-core 1.6 GHz CPU, the design isn't going to be a runaway success. If MSI could get the price close to $500 (yes, that's cheaper than the current €500 MSRP), keep the weight under 5 pounds, and boost battery life up to five hours or more we think it would be a much more interesting system.
Compared to netbooks with Intel Atom CPUs, the AMD Neo MV-40 offers better performance with power requirements that are 2~3 times as high, so a smaller netbook based on AMD's Neo could be competitive. It would certainly offer better performance than Atom netbooks, in both the CPU and GPU departments assuming it uses an ATI IGP. We're certainly interested in seeing more of AMD Neo and perhaps getting a better package for the low power CPU.
If you happen to live in the UK (or possibly Europe), the MSI X610 is a solution for people looking for a reasonably lightweight laptop to function as a multimedia and light gaming system. You'll have to decide if the slower CPU with faster GPU is a better fit than something that uses a dual-core CPU up with integrated graphics. Either way you should get roughly the same battery life, but certain applications/games will favor dual core CPUs while others will prefer discrete graphics. The MSI X610 won't be the perfect solution for everyone, but there's a niche market that it just might satisfy. If you don't mind slightly faster than netbook performance (with significantly faster graphics performance) with less battery life and you want a bigger laptop that doesn't weigh a ton, the MSI X610 could be exactly what you're after.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
41 Comments
View All Comments
stmok - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
It looks like the X610 is based on the elements of AMD's ultra thin notebook platform. (The first generation is codenamed: "Yukon".)The 2nd generation is "Congo". AMD's PR has a look at the prototype of Congo...Its actually an MSI X-series!
=> http://blogs.amd.com/patmoorhead/2009/09/09/congo-...">http://blogs.amd.com/patmoorhead/2009/0...eneratio...
This newer generation does feature the 780G chipset with Radeon HD 3200 IGP and dual-core CPU (also at 1.6Ghz).
The PR rep reckons you'll gain an hour or so with the 2nd generation "Congo".
Think I'll hold out for that...
ckistner - Thursday, October 8, 2009 - link
LG P300/310 is a great little machine as well.13.3 LED
Dualcore T8100 2.1 GHz
4 gig ram
Nvidia 8600m GS
external dvd rom
3-4 hrs battery life
Its price is a bit higher than the x610 but worth it imo.
JimmyJimmington - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
Dell Studio 14z is the better choice.Higher res screen.
Nvidia 9400M
A real processor
Same weight, still relatively thin.
Seriously what is the appeal of a super thin computer? Weight is absolutely important when you wanna carry your laptop around, but thinness just means more heat, or a crap CPU to keep the laptop from getting hot.
AznBoi36 - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
Considering the Radeon card has 512MB vram, couldn't you have set the quality settings to medium perhaps?JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
As mentioned at the bottom of the page, I tested most of the games at medium details as well (at least, the games where the CPU wasn't such a huge bottleneck that the game wasn't playable at minimum detail). Many of the playable games remained playable at 1366x768, and a couple could handle medium quality as well. Actually, Fallout 3 (27 FPS) and Empire TW (21 FPS) are the only games playable at medium 1366x768 - everything else is under 20FPS. Empire would also be a problem at 21, except mouse input isn't tied to the rendering rate (just like Maxis does with Sims and Spore), so lower frame rates are still okay.Totally - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
the X610 is in dire need of a stronger CPU. As-is it doesn't have an argument against the nv58/nv52.Abhilash - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
recent launched 45nm dual core neo on the X610 would have been greatqwertymac93 - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
why are dual core neos so rare? if this thing had a dual core neo instead of that dumb 4330, it would actually make sense. why is the 780g chipset so rare as well? these companies act like using a dual core neo and 780g in the same computer would rip a whole in the space/time continuum!togaman5000 - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
I've got the x600, and despite the lower number, I've gotten five or more hours of battery life and better performance out of it.JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
Yeah, that's what I've heard. I actually requested the X600 for review and they accidentally sent the X610 instead. I figured it would be interesting to see what the AMD Neo had to offer, but it's really difficult to say when we've got Neo + HD 4330. If the X600 offers two hours more battery life and the only difference is the CPU/chipset, that's not a good sign for the Yukon platform. Still, it's tough to draw any firm conclusions with just one sample.